Premiere: BBXO – ‘Firestorm’

Poetry meets urban blues in an electronic setting...

BBXO is a fresh project bringing together two masters in their field.

In one corner, you can find Brixtonboogie producer Krisz Kruezer, an electronic musician with deep roots in the UK club underground.

In the other, you can find Musa Okwonga, an activist, poet, and journalist who has never been afraid to cut against the grain.

The two have immense common ground, though, not least in the manner they approach music, and the role it can have in wider society.

New song 'Firestorm' seems to bring these disciplines together, with its heady, gritty electronics set against the rise of the alt-right at home and abroad.

Musa explains: "When Krisz sent me this beat, a young woman had just been killed at a protest against white supremacists in Charlottesville, USA. I had just attended a protest against neo-Nazis in west Berlin. Krisz described the tune as 'ragga-grimetrap-electro-soul', and I had to try it out on the soundsystem of my friend's car."

"The bassline sounded incredible, and it was punctuated by the sound of a match being struck; which, at that time, reminded me of the burning torches carried by the white supremacists at Charlottesville, and of the burning crosses of the Ku Klux Klan. So – you can really see how I joined the dots here, I guess – I told Krisz that we should write a song about how to fight the rise of the far-Right, and ‘Firestorm’ is the result – a tune which I hope rouses people, and makes them think."

A ferocious conjunction of two disciplined artists, 'Firestorm' is a real triumph – a heady mixture of music and politics, resulting in something that kicks hard and forces the conversation.

Tune in now.

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